Down On The T-Bar-V Ranch

I can barely recall the events of that day, almost fifty years ago yesterday in fact. Mom stuck a thermometer in my mouth. “He looks like he might be sick around the eyes.” I had a low grade fever and a slight sore throat. I remember Mom giving me an orange aspirin to chew. The only part of the drive I remember was along Brownsboro road and then downtown where the television studio was.

I was in a line with two dozen other children and their mothers. The other kids were dressed in their cowboy and cowgirl finery, the stringed hats, pot metal revolvers in plastic holsters, and the luckier kids wearing cowboy boots. The doors to the studio opened and we all filed in and sat on the little benches on either side of the studio, the Cactus side or the Randy side. I definitely wanted the Randy side as Cactus was just to scary looking for my taste with all his bizarre cowboy/clown-like makeup on his face. I remember thinking that Cactus looked like that all the time. Randy and Cactus were seated side by side at the head of the studio with a painted covered wagon for a background.

I remember a man behind the camera counting down, “five … four … three … two … one! We were live and on air. Randy and Cactus sang the opening T-Bar-V song and all the kids stomped their feet. It was quite an exciting racket. All the kiddies knew the drill. Your name would be called and you would walk up and be introduced by Randy or Cactus. You would wave and say your hello’s to family members and then the big moment when you would draw and “fire” your gun on the count of three. There were several breaks in the show for cartoons but eventually it came time for my moment in the sun. “This is five year old Barry McClain who lives right here in Louisville, Kentucky. Why don’t you say hi to your family Barry?” I have zero recollection what I said, or if in fact I said anything at all. On the count of three I drew my gun lightning fast and that was it, the big moment was over and I don’t remember anything after that.

T-Bar-V was a live local TV show that ran on WHAS from 1951 to 1970, every week day at 4 o'clock and I watched it most every day when I was a kid. Since it was a live show and before VCR's, there aren't any recordings of the show.